


The Art of Spinning

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Thor: The Dark World, Father-Son Relationship, Fiber Arts, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Mother-Son Relationship, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Protective Loki (Marvel), Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 06:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Following Malekith’s attack on Asgard, Frigga survives, but the only thing holding her to life is Loki. Desperate to save his wife, Odin alters Loki's sentence, imprisoning him instead in Frigga's sickroom. Alone with his ill and unconscious mother, Loki helps Thor and Jane escape Asgard as best he can, and then must confront both the damage he's caused and the damage his family has inflicted, on himself and on others.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first-ever contribution to a Big Bang! Thank you to my amazing beta reader [100indecisions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/100indecisions). Any irregularities are here in spite of her hard work. 
> 
> Accompanying art by [clarisimart](https://clarisimart.tumblr.com/post/179654111521/this-is-my-contribution-to-this-years-marvel-bang) and omg it's so _pretty_. 
> 
> If you're over on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness, and at [aflinley.tumblr.com](https://aflinley.tumblr.com/) for original fiction and also stuff I legally can't talk about on AO3.
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

  _“He who holds me by a thread is not strong; the thread is strong.”  
_ _– Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943  
_ _Translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin_

* * *

 

It was eerie, Loki reflected, as he perused his small collection of books, to be the sole occupant remaining in the dungeons, at least as far as he knew. Certainly there was no one left in his immediate area, as far as he could see, which was only a small portion of the vast labyrinth of Asgard’s prison complex, and no one had come to tell Loki otherwise.

No one had come to tell him anything, in fact, and it had been a full day at least since the prison break. Not that he really anticipated that the All-father or Thor would venture into this warren to pass the time of day with the discarded false son of their house, but that the queen had not tried to visit… that surprised him.

And it annoyed Loki, how much he was hurt by her apparent neglect. Especially after he’d spoken so unkindly to her. He realized, to his further irritation, that he wanted to apologize.

_Don’t be an idiot,_ he told himself sternly. _She’s not **meant** to visit me… and it doesn’t matter if she does or not. Her care does not matter, she does not matter. I don’t need her to come back. _

A very small voice responded, But I want to tell her that I’m sorry.

He thrust the voice away, chose a book at random, and then flung himself down upon his bed. It was a treatise on the marital practices of Nornheim, untranslated and very dense, and he had only managed to decipher the first few pages when he heard footsteps.

Not Frigga, then. She would have arrived by stealthier means.

The footsteps approached at a march, their stern, disciplined pattern mixed with the ring of armor interspersed with another, sharper tread: the thump of a spear shaft against the stone floor.

Odin.

“All-father,” Loki drawled when the footsteps came to an abrupt halt outside the glowing box of his cell.

“Loki.”

He did not bother to rise, or even to look up from his book. “After all this time, and now you come to visit me. Why? To mock? To gloat?”

“To see my son.”

“…Really? Have you put Thor down here to rot as well?”

“You are still my son, Loki, whether you will it or no.”

Loki chose not to dignify that with a response.

“I wanted to see that you were safe,” Odin continued, in a tone of voice that was so sincere, so _mournful_ , that it made Loki’s hackles rise. “In the wake of the attack.”

“‘Attack,’” Loki snorted. He tossed aside his book and stood languidly. “A bunch of malcontented prisoners making a bid for their freedom.”

“A surprise attack upon all of Asgard, by beings out of our earliest legends.” Was it his imagination, or did Odin actually shudder as he spoke? “Laid siege upon by the Dark Elves, and their leader Malekith.”

A wave of icy childhood nightmares engulfed Loki. “Truly?” he gasped.

Odin let out a bitter little laugh. “If I wished to tell you lies, my son, I could think of more plausible ones than that.”

“I had no idea,” said Loki, too startled to utter anything but the plain truth. “None at all. I thought it was only a jailbreak. A very elaborate and serious one, but no more than that.”

“One in which you, as a prince of the House of Odin, were too honorable to take part in, I trust.”

Loki twisted a smile at the king. “Well, when you put it like, that… no. I would have gone with them and gladly, but I suppose I looked too small and Asgardian for their use.”

The king looked disappointed, but unsurprised. Loki felt a pang of anxiety and then cursed himself for a sentimental fool. Strange, how the old man’s disappointment could still hurt so much.

“During the attack, the queen…” Odin’s stern demeanor wavered. “Frigga battled Malekith himself. She… did not prevail.”

Loki felt the blood drain from his face, and thought it must be draining out of the rest of his body, as well, leaving his heart empty and dry. “Did she suffer?” he asked, his voice stunned and lifeless. Unconsciously, he began to pick at his hands.

“No. It was a clean blow.”

A small mercy, Loki reflected, from a bitter sworn enemy. “When is the funeral to be?”

“It has not yet been arranged.”

“And you’ve come to tell me that I’m not permitted to attend, I take it. You might allow me that one courtesy. I never had any quarrel with Moth—with her. Chain me within an inch of my life, render me invisible and unable to speak, but…” Loki’s voice broke. “Don’t forbid me to say goodbye to her. Give me this last boon, All-father, before I am left alone down here forever.”

“Did I say that she was dead?” Odin shifted his spear sharply, and the humming golden net of energy that penned Loki into his cell dissipated. “Shackle him,” he told the guards, “and escort him to the royal apartments.”

Loki instinctively stepped back from the entrance, and the hairs on the back of his neck went up at the Einherjar’s approach. “Why? You just said—”

“I said that she is not yet dead. Which means we need to go to her, as quickly as possible. That is,” Odin added, “if you care to see her, before it is too late.”

Stunned and afraid, Loki stood quietly and let himself be chained.

He expected Odin to turn and stalk away, to leave him to be brought to Frigga’s side alone and to be brought back and re-imprisoned alone. Instead, the king walked with them – not beside Loki, but not far ahead.

Loki, too consumed with dread, could not even wonder at this.

The Einherjar walked with them to the entrance to the royal family’s private wing, and then Odin and Loki went in alone.

They came to Frigga’s chambers, and as they slipped inside, Loki’s eye was drawn, by force of habit, to the chair where his mother was usually sitting when he visited her in her rooms – by the window where the light was best, her spindle in her hands, or at work at her loom. But now the instruments of her craft were stilled, and the healers were gathered around her bed in tense, earnest watchfulness. The air was thick with the sparking touch of the soul forge and the sharp tang of antiseptics. The silence of Eir and her women alarmed him. He knew those expressions, the quick upward glance and then away, looking anywhere else, too burdened with knowledge to look him in the eye.

“Leave us,” said the king curtly.

To Loki’s surprise, Eir did not argue. Indeed, all the healers might well have been expecting the order.

When the two men were private in the queen’s chamber, Odin gestured to the bed in which his wife lay, silence and motionless. “Go to her, Loki.”

Still in chains, Loki stepped forward with trembling legs, and sank awkwardly to his knees at his mother’s bedside, reaching out with his manacled hands to clasp her limp hand between his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, knowing that he sounded like a desperate and frightened child, but not able to hold back his terror even for the sake of his pride. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He could feel the tears building in his throat and behind his eyes, and he struggled not to weep, to keep the tears from choking him before he could say all the things he wanted, he _needed_ to say to his mother. “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t… You are my mother. You-you must know that…”

It was too much. The tears threatened, and he had to clench his jaw and press his lips to the back of her hand to keep from keening aloud.

“I love you, Mother,” he said, his anguished words no more than a breath across her chill skin.

“Loki.”

Loki tensed, and then forced himself to rise – slowly, because of the chains – and turn and address the king. “Thank you,” he said stiffly, “for allowing me to say goodbye. No doubt the memory of this act of beneficent kindness will comfort you when she is gone.”

“I was not being kind,” said Odin gravely. “And that is not why you were brought here.”

The prince’s mood turned even grimmer. “If you seriously intend to appeal to my better nature for contrition now, it would be best to return me to my cell, before my common sense overpowers my grief.”

“This is your cell now.” Gungnir shifted slightly in Odin’s hands, and the chains fell from Loki’s neck and wrists and ankles. “You will have the same amenities as any other royal prisoner, but you are not to leave this room, and when this matter is… ended, you will be returned to prison. In the meantime, you are to follow the healers’ instructions and care for her. You will remain here with the queen, until she is well... or until she is dead.”

“...No.”

“This is not a discussion, my son—”

“I’m not your son!”

“But you are hers, and there is the proof.” Odin inscribed a circle in the air with the tip of his spear, showing the invisible golden threads that connected Frigga to her adopted child. Loki stared at the seidr with a dull, stunned expression. “Her life force fades, but for her link with you.”

“I don’t... why...” Loki reached up to lightly touch one of the threads, and saw and felt it flare with a primitive animal strength that made him gasp. “She’s fighting to live.”

“She is fighting for _you_. When the healers saw the connection between Frigga and the son of her heart, they all but ordered me to bring you to her.”

“No. You’re lying to me. Again. This is some kind of vile trick, she’s—”

“You are the only thing keeping Frigga alive,” said Odin simply. “She needs you, Loki. Whatever your hatred for me, she does not deserve to die for it.”

With his emotions in turmoil, there was little Loki could do but agree to the king’s terms.


	2. Chapter 2

“You will remain here, in this room. You may sleep in the anteroom, there.” The king nodded towards a corner alcove, but Loki had no need to look in the same direction. He knew every corner of his mother’s room, and had done ever since he could crawl. “Your meals will be brought to you, as before.”

“But…” Loki looked down at his unshackled wrists, and flexed his fingers in confusion. “What am I supposed to do for her?”

“Keep her alive,” said Odin, his voice hoarse and pained. “The healers will return shortly, to instruct you.”

With a last look at his unconscious wife, the king left with the guards, leaving the disgraced prince standing in the middle of the floor, the discarded chains lying in a heap beside his slippered feet. 

Loki found himself alone once more, abruptly and frighteningly alone, unbound but still shackled. The enormity of his task suddenly rushed in on him, and his knees nearly gave out. 

Hunting frantically for familiar things with which to ground himself, his eyes lit upon the spinning basket in the corner, with spindles, whorls, weights and wool, and his mind was flooded with memories from his childhood, when Frigga had sat him before her while she was working, giving him playful little lessons in spinning. 

He called those half-remembered lessons forward now, and staggered to the basket in the corner, grabbing a spindle at random. It was a green stone whorl, at the base of a smooth bone shaft, and it felt strange in his hands, but not unnatural. 

There were the beginnings of a new skein of thread on one of the spindles, which he clumsily tore away. Instead, Loki pulled down a few ends of the golden strands of seidr that still drifted overhead. They had not dissipated at Odin’s departure, but lingered in the air, a shimmering gossamer net of faint power. 

He wound the golden threads around the polished stick and set it spinning, doggedly trying to strengthen the threads connecting him to his mother and she to him. But the strands were worryingly thin and brittle. Frantic, Loki drew fresh seidr from within himself and twisted it together with the threads between himself and Frigga, and set the whorl spinning again. 

It took his fingers some time to remember the mechanics of the art. It was not simply spinning, but a constant repetition of pulling out the fibers, spinning the shaft, wrapping the freshly-twisted fibers around the shaft, and beginning again. The raw seidr was delicate and broke often, and had to be continuously smoothed together with Loki’s own magic.

After a few minutes of spinning, Loki’s shoulders began to ache, and after an hour, his shoulders and upper arms were screaming in pain. He had forgotten how much strain the work put on the muscles, because of the constant motion and the need to hold the spindle steady and keep it from wobbling. But he kept going.

[](https://clarisimart.tumblr.com/post/179654111521/this-is-my-contribution-to-this-years-marvel-bang)

When Eir arrived, she found the prince deep in women’s work, tears staining his face. 

Surprised as she was by the sight, she was more take aback by the seidr filling the room. “The king said we were connected,” Loki muttered, as the chief healer coaxed the spindle from his hands. “He told me to keep her alive…”

“That’s all well and good, your highness, but not if you work yourself into early death in the process.” 

She made him sit and rest while she checked his vital signs and administers a relaxant for his angry muscles, and then gave him instructions on how to use the soul forge and the other tools of her art. “You were always in and out of the healing halls when you were a stripling,” Eir commented, watching his hands manipulate the energy with skill. “This is merely going back to early games for you.”

“In more ways than one,” Loki agreed grimly, his eyes constantly darting down at the spinning basket. 

“I will not question your methods. But you must be wary of using too much of your own life energies in this task. You must take care of _yourself_ , as well as the queen,” she repeated sternly, when he seemed to lose interest. “Or else we shall lose both of you.”

“I daresay there would be far fewer mourners at my funeral than hers.”

Eir said nothing in response to that. She patted Loki’s shoulder briefly, and then slipped from the room.

It was many hours before anyone, healer or otherwise, ventured to open the door again, but Loki didn’t bother looking up when the unexpected visitor entered. There was no need; he had known that lumbering presence his entire life. Besides which, there were very few people who would dare enter the queen’s sickroom unannounced, and of those who would, the king would not bother attempting to deaden his footsteps.

“Thor.”

“Loki.” Thor paused as though he meant to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it. He came closer to Loki, and to the bed where their mother lay, so still. “Does she suffer?”

“No.” Loki gestured to the monitors that the healers had set up, and Thor went to study them. “She’s too deeply sedated right now to feel much of anything.”

“That is a great mercy,” said Thor, his face like stone as he studied the read-outs. “A wound like this… she ought not to have survived.”

“It is something of a miracle.”

“Father says it’s because of you.” Thor turned to him with an expression that boded ill.

“It’s nothing I’ve done,” Loki said hastily, feeling cornered. “It’s just – there’s a connection. It exists. I don’t know why it should be with me and not you.”

“She lives. If you are the reason why, then that is enough.”

Privately, Loki doubted that. “If Odin told you of her survival, then surely he explained the new terms of my imprisonment as well. So you needn’t bother about my being here while you visit with Mother; no one else does.”

“I did not come here for Mother.”

A deep frown creased Loki’s forehead. “Then I don’t understand. What else is there? Aught else could bring you within a hundred feet of me?”

“I need your help.”

Loki couldn’t restrain himself – he laughed. “ _My_ help? Oh brother, whatever it is, you must be _truly_ desperate.”

“I am,” said Thor grimly. “And from your demeanor, I think that you have no idea why.”

“Not a clue.”

“Father did not tell you.”

“When does Odin tell me anything? Even when I was the obedient spare, he only ever told me what I needed to hear to comply with his bidding, and _now_ —”

Thor’s expression grew ever darker. “He did not tell you how Mother was injured?”

“He told me she was wounded in an attack upon Asgard, an attack from the Dark Elves. It’s hard to credit… they are creatures out of half-forgotten legends… but as the All-father himself admitted, had he wished to deceive me, he could have found a better lie with both eyes blinded.” Loki gnawed absently at the inside of his lip. “Did he lie?”

“No. There was an attack. The Dark Elves descended upon Asgard. But Father did not tell you why?”

Loki shrugged. “Your grandfather all but destroyed them. Surely that is reason enough.” But he watched Thor carefully, confused and curious. He had never seen his brother in such a state before. The grimness of his countenance fitted him ill, and it seemed to go beyond a sneak attack by a long-dead enemy and the foul attack upon their mother. “But there _is_ something else, I take it. Something Odin prefers to conceal from me.”

“Yes. And perhaps I can understand a little of why.”

Something about Thor’s manner, about the way he looked at Loki with cold calculation, caused a wave of sickness to rise in Loki’s gullet. And when Thor spoke again, he felt no surprise, no shock. 

Only terror.

“Another Infinity Stone has been found. A thing called the Aether. When the universe was young, our grandfather Bor took it from Malekith, and hid it where he thought it would never be found.”

“Midgard.”

Thor narrowed his eyes. “How did you know?”

“I…” How _had_ he known? Had he known at all? “It was the logical assumption. That planet has a habit of attracting things that don’t wish to be found, and then breaking its promises.” Loki swallowed hard and scratched viciously at his palm. He needed something to do with his hands…

He stooped and grabbed the spindle from the basket, ignoring Thor’s perplexed frown at his behavior. “I didn’t know you could spin.”

“Mother taught me, when I was a child.”

“But you have no wool, no flax.”

Loki drew a gleaming gold thread from nothing and wound it around the spindle. “I have this in plenty.” 

Thor fell silent, and for a few minutes, as Loki settled into the rhythm of the spinning weight and the pull of the spun seidr in his hands, there was peace between them. “Who uncovered the Aether?”

“Someone ill-equipped to handle the full force of its power.”

“Some poor unsuspecting mortal, then.”

“Yes. It took possession of her.”

Loki’s hands faltered badly on the fibers of magic and he had to let the spindle come to a halt. “That is… unfortunate.”

“You have been… so touched. You survived.”

“Did I?” Loki stared at his hands and then chuckled weakly.

He was alive, that much was true. And he was very good at surviving, that was also well-known. But whether he had or not… he was unsure. 

Thus far, he had said nothing of the Titan to Odin, even though confessing who had been in control of him during the attack on Midgard might have mitigated his punishment dramatically, possibly completely. 

But that would have meant admitting to the All-father – to _his_ father – that he was not acting under his own power. That he was acting out of fear for himself and for his family. That he was a puppet, a _thing_ — 

Of course, if Odin had questioned him as a father to a son, instead of simply condemning him as a king to a traitor and then washing his hands of an irritant, perhaps Loki might have swallowed his pride _(admitted how terrified he was, even caged in Asgard’s heart, where he was supposed to be safe)_ and confessed all. 

Such a thing would never come to pass, of course. And all for the better, since Loki had no intention of begging for the forgiveness Odin would have no doubt conditioned his pardon on. 

“Survival is very much a matter of perspective,” Loki murmured. “What happened to the mortal?”

“She lives, for the moment, though her health waxes and wanes unpredictably. She is here.” Loki’s head jerked up, startled, and his eyes met Thor’s. “I brought her here.”

“…Oh, for – you _must_ be joking! No one’s luck is that bad, or good!”

“Jane Foster is here, and possessed by the Aether.”

“Apparently some people’s luck just is that bad.” Loki groaned and rubbed his forehead, and tried not to look at the mess of his spinning. Hopefully, thick lumps and slubs would be easier to smooth out of seidr than he remembered them being out of wool. “I suppose that explains why Odin didn’t mention her to me. It follows that after my actions with the Tesseract, he would not want me to know about any other Infinity Stones coming to Asgard.”

He looked up and once again saw that Thor was regarding him with an odd expression. “Too many more of those and you’ll give himself a wrinkle,” Loki said sourly. “ _What?_ ”

“You also once threatened Jane,” Thor said. 

“I… did I?”

_“Loki, this is madness!”_

_“Is it madness? Is it? **Is it?** I don’t know what happened on Earth to make you so soft! Don't tell me it was that woman? …Oh, it **was**. Well maybe, when we’re done here, I’ll pay her a visit **myself**!”_

“I suppose I did.” Loki sighed and slowly put the spindle away. “You won’t believe me if I say I never intended to hurt your precious mortal, but it is the truth. I do speak the truth sometimes.”

“I remember. Not frequently, but… always when it mattered most.” 

Loki was far more touched by that statement than he was comfortable admitting. “You said you needed my help.”

Thor glanced around and then motioned him away from Frigga’s bed, and into the inner chamber where Loki was to sleep. “What I am about to ask you is treason of the highest order. Success will bring me exile and failure will mean both our deaths.”

A ripple of excitement crackled through Loki’s veins. He couldn’t help it. Any chance of mischief was like candy to him. “This is so unlike you, brother. So clandestine… I’m listening.”

“Malekith knew the Aether was here. He can sense its power. If we do nothing, he will come for it again, but this time, lay waste to all of Asgard.”

“Odin must realize this, surely.”

“He does.”

“And what does he propose to do?”

“To let them come. He is maddened with grief, Loki, and rage, and he wishes for vengeance.”

Loki couldn’t keep the horror off his face. “I can’t exactly blame him for that, but the cost—”

“He no longer cares. For the insult done to Mother, he would see legions of our people slaughtered – military and civilian alike – if it means destroying Malekith.”

The excitement of rule-breaking gave way to a cold dread. “I wish I could say that it wasn’t possible for him to behave in such a way, but we both know how much he hates to be crossed. His methods of retribution and punishment do tend to be rather… dramatic.”

“It must run in the family,” said Thor, with a grin that faded quickly. “He has put Jane under guard. I must move her off-world.”

“I was about to suggest it, but where do I come in?”

“The Bifrost has been shut down and the Tesseract locked away in the vaults. But there are other paths off Asgard. Ways known only to a few. To one, in fact.”

“…No. Ohhh no.”

“You have to help me.”

“Honestly?” Loki shrugged. “I really don’t. I’m already in the All-father’s bad books, after all. The only reason I’m here taking care of Mother is because apparently she’ll die unless I’m nearby. If she had died? I’d still be rotting in the dungeons. He probably wouldn’t have even let me out for her funeral. I’m in no position to risk Odin’s wrath, _especially_ not when he seems intent on committing genocide because of an insult to his house.” Loki grinned, and it felt tight and sickening. “Something else that runs in the family. So if you want to try and save your little mortal, and get yourselves killed in the process, go right ahead.”

“And will that satisfy you?” Thor snapped.

“Satisfaction’s not in my nature.”

“Surrender’s not in mine.”

Loki sneered at him. “The son of Odin.”

“No, not just of Odin! You think you alone are loved of Mother? You have her tricks, but I have her trust!”

“…Trust. Was that her last expression? Trust? When you let her be brutalized by that – that _creature_?”

“And what help were you in your cell?”

No help at all… of no use to anyone, as he’d always been. “Who put me there?” Loki demanded, pushing the guilt away and snarling. “ _Who put me there?!_ ” 

Thor grabbed Loki by the front of his shirt and hoisted him into the air. “You know damn well! You know damn well who!” He drew back his fist and Loki had to steel himself for the blow… but it never came. “She wouldn’t want us to fight,” Thor muttered, putting Loki down with a thump.

Loki took a moment to regain his balance and calm his heartbeat. “Well,” he pointed out with a slight smile, “she wouldn’t exactly be shocked.”

Thor returned the smile, but his expression was somewhere caught between laughter and tears. “I wish I could trust you.” And he turned his back on his brother. 

The action was a fresh lance through Loki’s already lacerated heart. “If you did,” he sneered, “you’d be the fool I always took you for.” Then, before he could jeer himself out of it, “Trust my rage.”


	3. Chapter 3

“He’s bringing the mortal here,” Loki murmured, as he sat beside Frigga’s bed, resting his fingertips lightly on the back of her hand. Every touch now was precious, but he could not bring himself to permit more than the barest of caresses. “I’ve promised to give him a talisman that will allow him through the secret path to Svartalfheim, in the cliffs across the water, but only if he would bring her here before leaving. He was going to take her straight to a ship, but I need to see her myself. If I’m going to commit treason for Thor, the least he can do is introduce me to this woman.” 

He had many reasons for that. Perhaps not all of them creditable. Perhaps, even, not all of his own devising. 

Did he wish to see Jane Foster for her own sake? Or for the sake of the power slowly devouring her from within? 

Loki did not know. And that frightened him. 

“I wish I could put words to it,” he said, gritting his teeth against the tears he would not let fall. They burned his eyes with the effort, but he would give the weakness no quarter. He was not a child, to go running to his mother even on what might be her deathbed to tell her about his bad dreams. But oh, he so wanted to. She would understand what he had suffered, what he had sacrificed. She would… she _would_. She always did. 

And he did not wish to find out what would become of him, if his mother was no longer there to tell his nightmares to.

He heard the footsteps coming quickly, and not quietly, either. Thor had not told him what he would do, to distract the Einherjar, but whatever he’d done, it had been effective, because in spite of the clatter their boots and armor made, no one hastened to stop their approach. 

At his brother’s entrance, Loki rose and smoothed his hands over his hair and down the front of his tunic and vest. It was foolish, especially since he was a prisoner and not expected to be in company, but he felt woefully underdressed for the occasion. He did so like to make a good impression. 

The mortal followed Thor hastily, and behind her was Sif, looking irritated and on edge. No doubt she was rather put-out, to be committing treason for the sake of the woman Thor preferred over her, but at that moment, Loki’s concern was Jane Foster. 

Plainly, neither Sif nor Thor had told her where they were going, and she looked around in confusion. Her gaze fell on the sickbed where the queen lay, and a spasm of guilt and grief crossed her face. 

Then she caught sight of Loki and her eyes went wide. “You’re—” 

Centuries of training kicked in, and without thinking, he made a little bow. “I’m Loki, you may have heard of me—” 

A fist cracked across his jaw. “That,” said Jane shortly, “was for New York.”

Thor and Sif both tensed, but Loki smiled slowly and regarded his brother’s mortal with new interest. “Oh, I like her.”

“You will not harm her,” Sif ordered.

Loki didn’t raise his eyes from his contemplation of the small Midgardian. “Now, why would I want to do that?”

Sif and Thor both hesitated, but Jane spoke out boldly. “She was hurt protecting me. Well, protecting the Aether…”

“Definitely you. I doubt the presence of the Aether within you ever concerned her at all. My mother would protect anyone. It’s her nature.” Loki shoved away all possible variant interpretations of that statement, and studied Thor’s mortal critically. “How’s your hand?”

“…It’s fine.”

“Interesting.” He held out his own hand and raised an eyebrow. After a moment, Jane put her fingers into his and allowed him to spend a few seconds examining her palm and her joints and gently palpating the small bones, all while Thor loomed over them and glowered at his brother. 

“What exactly is so ‘interesting’?” Jane demanded, finally jerking out of his grasp. 

“You haven’t got so much as a bruise.”

“And? I do know how to throw a punch.”

“That much is apparent,” said Loki gravely, with a note of deep admiration. “But the fact that you didn’t break your hand on my face… that’s interesting. I wonder…” He reached out again, but this time did not touch her. “I can only conclude that the Aether is giving you enhanced physical abilities as well as acting as a defense mechanism.”

Jane blinked. “What, like… it’s turning me into a superhero?”

Thor looked interested, but Loki shook his head. “I wouldn’t petition the Avengers for membership just yet, Doctor. This power will kill you, and not very long from now, if it isn’t removed. I am tempted to try and remove it myself. It might be of use in assisting the queen’s recovery… but my own powers are being largely shackled by the All-father. What little I am allowed is for the aid of the queen.”

“Well, that sucks for you, but I can’t say I’m that disappointed.”

Loki’s face split into an appreciative grin. 

“You vowed to help us,” Thor reminded him, putting a shoulder between the two of them, while Sif hovered and watched in silence. _She_ was not unaware of the various currents in the room, Loki felt, both magical and otherwise, even if she was not prepared to examine and identify them. “Now keep your promise. Show us how to find your secret pathways.”

With difficulty, Loki tore his eyes away from Jane Foster. She was watching him with a mixture of fear, disgust and fascination, a set of emotions that would normally fill him with rage. But from Jane Foster, it felt… acceptable, under the circumstances. Even admirable. 

He flexed his fingers and called one of his daggers to his hand. It took more effort than was usual, and hurt more than it should have, but he managed. As he had expected, Sif tensed, all too ready to expect treachery. Loki glanced sidelong at her and then flipped the dagger’s blade into his hand, holding the hilt out towards Thor, who took it warily.

“It’s straightforward enough,” Loki shrugged. “You know the cliffs beyond the confines of the southern harbor?”

“Yes.”

“Keep that blade pointed forward, and fly directly into the cliffs. The dagger will do the rest.”

“…You’re mad.”

“Possibly,” Loki grinned, and proceeded to explain further.

As he spoke, he could practically _see_ the neurons firing behind Dr. Foster’s eyes. To his delight, it was plain that she understood everything he was saying. “He… you… he’s talking about a subatomic interstitial wormhole.”

Thor smiled. “He is, yes.” 

“‘Subtemporal’ would be a better term,” Sif added dryly, “as many of them exist below the fabric of space-time.”

Jane gawked at them. “Wait, if you know what these things are—” 

“Everyone knows what they are,” Loki said. “Everyone, from the smallest child on Midgard to the most ancient of the Norns. Every culture has tales of secret pathways and portals. It’s only the names that change. For those who can’t shape the phenomenon—”

“‘Shape,’ you mean, you created these wormholes?”

“Not this one, this is naturally-occurring. But I have in the past. I try to avoid it, though. Fine manipulation of the building blocks of the universe is exhausting and dangerous, and the energy could be put to far better use.”

“‘Better use,’” she repeated, and so flatly that for a moment Loki’s blood ran cold, fearing that she was about to remind him of his machinations with the Tesseract and the strange mind-controlling staff and the portal that had unleashed a dimension of Hel onto Earth. “Better use than creating artificial interstitial wormholes _from scratch_.”

“You _could_ describe the phenomenon in such terms,” said Loki, with fastidious distaste. “But I prefer poetry.” 

“Hey, science is poetic!” 

“The concepts are beautiful; the terminology is not. And ‘wormhole’ is just a filthy word, if you think about it too long.”

“Snob.”

“Guilty as charged, Doctor. And yes, far better use for my time and resources. Creating portals is _hard_ , and when they exist naturally, why bother?” He shrugged as languidly as possible, for the express purpose of getting under her skin. 

And it would have worked, too – he saw her beginning to bristle with scientific indignation – when Thor stepped between them again. 

“Thank you, brother, I think we have all the information we need. Now we must simply wait for our ride. He should be here soon.” Thor hesitated, and then clapped Loki on his shoulder. “I will not forget this.”

“No, but we may both live just long enough to regret it.” Loki pushed aside Thor’s hand, but only after letting the touch linger an extra second or two. 

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“…Possibly.” Loki looked pointedly at Jane, who huffed dramatically but moved to the opposite window and made a show of not listening, and at Sif, who stared stonily back and refused to move.

“Sif,” said Thor, touching her arm. “A moment, please.”

Because he asked, Sif went, making for the chamber door to stand guard. Loki lowered his voice anyway. “Be careful,” he told Thor, very quietly. “Malekith doubtless has his soldiers, but from what information I’ve been able to glean from the old histories, those soldiers may also still have families on the stasis ships.”

An expression like an ill fog crept over Thor’s face. “Why do you suspect so?”

“I read about it. I’ve had nothing to do for the past year except work my way through the palace libraries.”

“I assumed you were planning your escape,” said Thor, with a faint half-grin.

“That’s what I spent the first week doing, then I got bored. But Mother kept bringing me books, the less-known, the better. And there are one or two records that suggest that there might still be civilians among the Dark Elf survivors.”

“I would never have suspected… I will keep that in mind,” he said, and he meant it, “but Loki, why…?” Loki’s eyes slid away from his own, and refused to return, and his hunched posture and the restless state of his hands spoke of his deep agitation. “You’re trying to compel me to show them mercy,” Thor realized. 

One lean shoulder twitched reluctantly. “And if I am?”

“After everything Malekith has done, brother… why?” A thought as sudden as one of Thor’s own thunderbolts seemed to strike him. “Is this because of Earth?”

Loki did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned his gaze towards their mother. “It’s what she would want,” he murmured. “From both of us. You must not succumb to Father’s rage.” He gritted his teeth until the tears of shame burning his eyes subsided, until he could speak again, without howling. “Or to mine. You can… you ought to do better.” Then, hastily, before Thor could reply, “I wish I could go with you. I would like to give the Dark Elves a taste of my vengeance.” 

“Your wrath is terrible, brother,” Thor agreed grimly, clasping his shoulder, “and I will not say that Malekith doesn’t deserve it.”

Loki wavered for a moment, but in the end, he shook his head. “Terrible, but too cold and slow. We need this done quickly. And I can’t leave Mother.” He tore his eyes away from Frigga’s still form, and shifted his attention to Jane. “What I could do with the power that flows through those veins,” he murmured.

“It would consume you,” Thor reminded him. 

“It would… and would that be such a terrible thing? But she’s holding up all right. For now.”

“She’s strong in ways you’d never even know.”

Loki rubbed his jaw ruefully. “I know at least one way.”

“As are you.”

“You know this plan of yours is going to get us killed,” Loki continued, shying away from _that_ comment like a scared horse.

Thor nodded. “Possibly.” Then, “Are you sure this will work?” 

“As sure as I can be. Why? You still don't trust me, brother?”

Thor snorted. “Would you?”

Loki smiled. “Oh, perhaps not. Then again… perhaps yes. It varies from moment to moment.” Then he frowned and held up a hand. “Listen.”

Thor jerked his head at Sif, who leapt to the window. “A skiff on approach.”

“Good. That’s our ride.” He reached for Jane and pulled her close. “Get ready.”

The hum of the light craft grew louder, until finally the small open vessel was hovering just outside of Frigga’s room. Sif flung open the casement, just in time for a smiling bearded face to make an appearance. “All ready?” Fandral asked. 

“More than ready.” Thor handed Jane up to him, and Fandral took her gently and helped her into the skiff. As Thor hauled himself up, Fandral glanced at the figure in the bed. “How fares the queen?”

“Neither good nor ill,” Thor said, jumping over the side of the craft. “But she has the best care in Asgard.”

Loki’s face did not change, but he felt a lump come into his throat, and hated himself for it.

Jane peered through the window at Sif, but she was watching for any possibility of interception and studiously _not_ paying attention to the skiff. Instead, she twisted around to find Loki.

“Hey, um. Thanks.” 

Loki nodded. “Good luck, Dr. Foster.” 

“Jane.” 

He saw the red power of the Aether flare in her eyes, and beyond that, her own determination, and felt cold. He drew away from the window. Fandral tossed him a cheerful salute, but Thor gave him one last look that said far too much, before turning determined blue eyes to the mountains across the harbor.


	4. Chapter 4

Sif remained with him for some time, after the fugitives’ departure. It was the first time he had seen her since his fall from the Bifrost and it was… awkward, to say the least.

The most formidable warrior in Asgard sat at the side of the disgraced prince and gazed upon the still, silent form of the queen. Sif had lost her own mother at a very early age, and there was a deep bond between her and Frigga, one that Loki had been jealous of, in former years. 

Now, though, he was simply glad of the company.

“She will survive,” said Sif. “I am sure of it.” 

“In spite of me.” Loki ached to touch his mother’s hand, but with Sif’s eyes on him, he thought it better not to risk it. 

“Because of you.” 

“I’m not her only son. I’m not even her trueborn son. She has more than enough worth living for. If I was not here—” 

“Then she might survive in spite of your absence. But your presence at her side can only be counted as a good thing. You have always been her favorite, you know.”

“Yes, as Thor has always been Odin’s favorite.”

Sif didn’t attempt to deny that. She said, instead, “For all the good that has done him. He has the king’s pride and admiration but not his trust. If Odin valued his counsel, we would not have needed to commit treason this day.”

True enough, Loki though, though he felt himself on shaky ground. It had been a very long time since he and Sif had stood on the same side of an issue, or since she and he had both been allied alongside Thor. “You should go before Odin comes,” he said, after a time. “He’s distracted right now and it will likely be some time before he realizes what’s happened, but he’ll turn up here sooner or later.” 

“Yes. He will know you helped Thor.” 

“He’ll know we all helped Thor, but right now I’m the least expendable. At least until the queen recovers.” Loki jerked his head at the door. “Go, Lady Sif, and hide yourself away until the explosion passes. I doubt it will be much longer in coming.”

Sif rose slowly. She had been reluctant to enter the room, and now she seemed reluctant to leave it. “Are you certain? I could stay.”

“For my sake or for hers? Either way, it will do none of us any good.”

“Is there anything I can—?”

“Sif? Just go.” _Before I say something we will all deeply regret._

She left, thank the Norns, without saying another word. 

Loki drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He longed for calm, all but prayed for it, but all he got was the sharp sting of antiseptic in his nostrils. 

There was nothing more he could do. He could sit there and watch as his mother’s chest rose and fell. Its grievous injury was hidden beneath bandages, the pain of it suppressed in spite of her unconsciousness. He could pour himself water or wine from the sideboard, or pick at the food that had been left for his consumption. He could perhaps sleep, never something he was very conscientious about. And he could sit with the spindle in his hands and spin, doing his best to strengthen the magical bonds between himself and the woman who had raised him – he fancied he could feel _something_ , the more he practiced and the more threads he fashioned from the individual fibers of seidr that ran through the dull fabric of existence and bound them together in spite of all he had done. Perhaps it was even helping.

But that was all. And with such meager weapons, he was supposed to save her life. 

The loneliness of it all threatened to crush him, and as before, he flung his mind back to his boyhood, to when he had been sick with some serious illness and confined to his bed for weeks. He didn’t remember much of it, but what he could recall centered around Frigga. She had always been there, whenever he had floated back towards lucidity, and the terror of the fever was blunted by the memory of her voice, low and warm, in his ears, and her cool, strong hand on his forehead. 

Trembling like a dried leaf in autumn, Loki hitched his chair a little closer to his mother’s bed. He touched her hand with light fingertips. It was the same as before, the same as always: cool, capable, and strong. Slowly, he curled his fingers around hers, clasping her hand gently. With the other hand, he smoothed her pale ringlets away from her brow, and searched for things to say. 

“For so long,” he murmured, “I’ve been known as Silvertongue. And yet now, when I most need words of comfort and reassurance, I have none to give, to you or to myself. Mother, I—” His jaw began to spasm uncontrollably and he broke off in mid-sentence. “There is so much I _could_ say, but there’s no point. Either you will never hear me, and die, and it will be wasted, or else you will hear me, and live, and I can never take those words back. And yet I must speak. So what am I to do, Mother?” 

From far away, he was startled to feel tears drenching his cheeks. “What am I to do?”

He laid his cheek on her hand as the structure of his world began to crack. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “for… everything, I suppose. For the pain I’ve caused you, for the disappointment I’ve been. You always had such high hopes for me, and Fath— _Odin_ always had such high expectations. And now look at all of us…

“But it’s not… even if what happened on Midgard had never come to pass, I can’t be the son you remember. He is dead. Suffocated in the Void. Drowned and broken and taken apart by merciless hands. All that’s left of him is anger.”

Loki lifted his head enough to scrub his sleeve across his wet face. “You told me you were my family. You and Thor and Odin. But did Thor ever see, in our youth, when I was hurting? Did Odin ever bother to ask why I tried to turn conqueror, before simply tossing me aside? And you, Mother…?”

The tears choked him then, and it was a long time before he could continue aloud, so he turned the words over and over in his mind, until he knew what had to be said. Even if he was the only one who would ever hear it and remember, it had to be spoken.

“You are my mother,” he said softly. “I can deny it as often as I please, but that will not cause it to be anything but the truth. If it was not true, then I could say all of this when you awake. But if I said all of this to your face, all these dark and bitter and angry words, it would hurt you. Words spoken against Thor and Odin would hurt you, and you would tell me so, and that… that, I could not bear. And you would take my side, and take my love and adoration as your due, and know that my desire not to cause you pain gives you power over me. And if you were not my mother, I wouldn’t care. 

“But I do. Heavens help me… I do. I care… altogether too much.” 

There was nothing left to say. He wiped his face with his sleeve again, and pressed a light kiss to his mother’s hand, now damp with his tears, and waited. 

It was all that was left to him to do. 

Soon enough, though, the explosion he had warned Sif about descended. 

“Thor is gone,” the king snarled, storming into the sickroom. “And the human woman.”

“Is that so? How unfortunate for you.”

“You helped them,” said Odin, his single eye blazing like blue flame. “Do not insult me with your lies, I know that you helped them. No one else would be capable. No one else would _dare_.”

“I wouldn’t dream of lying to you, All-father. And I know this will shock you, but in my entire life, I’ve almost never lied to _you_. Yes, of course I helped them.” Loki shrugged, the same careless, gracile lift of the shoulders that he had nearly enraged Jane Foster with. “Thor needed to get to Svartalfheim, and I knew a shortcut.”

“Do you realize what you have done?” the king demanded. “Do you have any conception of the damage you have helped to cause? You have doomed all the Nine Realms and perhaps all the universe, by sending the Aether directly into Malekith’s hands.”

“The Aether,” Loki sneered. “That’s all you see. That’s all you’re _capable_ of seeing, only the Aether, and not the woman infected with it. Just as you never once saw _me_ , only a discarded Jotun prince, and pondered how best to make use of me. I _know_ what you told Thor. You would see all that remains of the Dark Elves dead, but not even I’m enough of a monster to want that.”

“It is not monstrous, it is _necessary_!”

“Is it? Is hurling all of Asgard’s troops and most of its civilians into the abyss also ‘necessary’, All-father? Will that finally sate your bloodlust? Or is it merely a beginning?” There was a look on Odin’s face that Loki ignored in the moment, but when he thought back on it later, it might have been guilt. “Well, clearly, if I can lay any claim to not being a monster, then that was all Mother’s doing, none of yours.”

It was as though his words had struck the king dumb. Unable to respond, or even to speak, Odin stared at his son for a second or two, and then left in an uncomfortable hurry. 

“He doesn’t always know what he’s doing, you know,” Loki muttered over Frigga’s vital signs. “I wish you hadn’t brought us up to think that he did. That he was all-knowing and all-seeing and infallible, like—” He laughed to cover the sudden lump in his throat, though there was no one to hear his voice strain, because there was nothing else he could do. “Like a god.”

But when his laughter faded, Loki was still standing in his mother’s sickroom, alone but for his silent patient. Unable to leave, unable to join his brother on the field of battle, unable to do anything save wait and worry. 

So he did the only thing he could do. He took the spindle from the basket, and began again to spin.


	5. Chapter 5

It seemed to Loki that he sat beside his mother’s bed, spinning the native energies in the room into something stronger and more tangible, for days. Years, centuries, even. His sense of time had been dulled by a year underground, without anything to mark the passage of day to night save the strictly regular arrival of his meals. 

But when he looked at the position of the sun on the horizon, and then at the time stamps on the screens monitoring his mother’s condition, he saw that it had been barely two hours since Thor had fled with Jane, and little more than an hour since Odin had skirmished with his disgraced foundling child and then left.

“He never even asked after you,” Loki murmured to Frigga darkly, twisting the seidr thread around the shaft. He gently pulled more fibers of magic from nothing and set to his work again. 

Then he looked up, frowning. He thought he had heard something, or felt something... odd. He checked the monitors, but Frigga’s condition had not altered. And yet he definitely had felt _something_ , a strange sort of tingle on the back of his neck. The sensation reminded him of the brief but embarrassing chastisement of the switch that his boyhood tutors had employed, when his mind had wandered from his lessons one too many times. It hadn’t hurt, but it had certainly gotten his attention…

_Jane,_ he realized, drawing in a quick breath, not from pain but from the sudden and inexplicable certainty that he was about to be submerged in water. There was pressure on his chest as well… _The Aether… she’s free._

The Aether was free, and he was waiting to drown.

“Loki?”

He jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair and dropping the spindle; the seidr in the room shuddered into sight around them, warping in flashing golden webs around them before it vanished once more. “Mother?” His heart leaped in his chest.

“Loki?” Her head moved restlessly on her pillow, and on the monitor, her heartrate began to race. “My son? Where are you?”

“Mother? Mother, I’m here,” he said, fumbling for her hand. “It’s me.”

But though her eyes stared wildly at him, she could not see him for himself, nor was she able to hear his voice as a familiar one. Yet her hand gripped his with reassuring firmness, and despite not recognizing him as her son, his touch nevertheless calmed her, and so soothed, she gradually relaxed, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Loki dropped his face into his hands and sobbed silently. 

_I can’t do this… All-fathers forgive me, I cannot do this. I cannot save her. And if she does not know me anymore… can she be saved at all?_

_Can **I** be saved?_

But there was no answer to that, and when he could no longer cry, all that was left for him to do was to check the monitors again, to adjust the flow of healing energy into his mother’s body, and then to pick up his spindle once more.

The more he plucked and pulled at the fibers of magic, twisting and turning them into strong seidr threads, the more the movements Frigga had taught him as a child came back to him. The acts of pulling and spinning and feeling the tension in his fingers, when it was too little or too great and when it was just right, were gradually becoming second nature to him again, as they had once been, and as his hands remembered truly, his shoulders and upper arms ached less and his mind became free to wander.

He daydreamed, and his thoughts wandered. He found himself worrying about Thor in spite of himself… and worrying about Thanos in spite of his best efforts to banish the Titan from his mind. He did his best to push the thoughts firmly away, especially as he did not wish for the memories and the fear and the shame to taint the seidr in his hands. 

Most of all, he worried about Frigga. If she died, he would have no reason left to live, and Odin would have no reason to keep him alive any longer.

_“You are still my son, Loki, whether you will it or no.”_

“If he had truly meant it,” said Loki under his breath, struggling to be even-handed in both thought and word, for the sake of the seidr, “he would not have condemned me without a trial. He would have asked _why_ , and not relented until he got the truth. He would have seen through the lie—!”

The thread snapped under the weight of his foul mood, and Loki had to sigh. “Would I have done as much for myself, I wonder?” he murmured. “If Odin had pressed, would I have relented? And had I such an irksome son, would I have bothered, anymore than he did?”

He stared down at the hank of soft golden fiber in one hand and at the spindle and its weight of spun seidr thread in the other, for a long time. Then he rose and placed them back in the spinning basket, and then returned to his seat and his vigil.

He was stroking his mother’s forehead gently when he felt the explosion rip through the fabric of reality.

“Thor,” he tried to gasp, but no sound came out. _Thor. Malekith._

Without thinking, he rose up and bent over his mother, shielding her from the aftershock with his body. The power released by Malekith’s death blazed over and through them, but Loki took the force of the blow on himself. The pain was excruciating; he buried his face in his mother’s neck and screamed.

It was nothing like the unending agony he had endured in Thanos’s company – for one thing, this pain ended, almost as fast as it came – but it still _hurt_.

When he was sure it was over _(Thor, you lead the most vilely charmed existence – you oaf, how did you **do** it?!)_ , he unbent slowly, every muscle and bone in his body throbbing hotly. That much residual energy suddenly exploding through the Nine Realms, every seidr user within the bounds of Yggdrasil was certain to have felt a piece of it.

It gave Loki a moment of grim satisfaction, to think of what fraction of that torment Odin had experienced alongside him… and in the next moment, he felt sickened at his own glee.

_No consistency. Pick an emotion and stick with it, you pathetic excuse for—_

A small sound from the bed, like a whimper, snapped him out of his self-loathing. “Mother,” said Loki softly, taking her hand and clasping it within both of his. “Mother, I’m here.”

“Loki, I’m so sorry… my son, my son…”

“Yes,” he said, a lump coming into his throat, “your son.”

A weak smile flitted across Frigga’s face, followed by a flash of pain. “I heard you. I’m so… so sorry. But you… you should not—” Her wound seized her suddenly, and stole her breath away, leaving her rigid with agony and unable to make a sound. Her eyes widened in terror. 

Quickly, Loki worked to ease her suffering, administering pain relief and adjusting the settings of the equipment to monitor the new dosage, silently cursing all the while that his own magic was bound and useless. “It’s all right, Mother, you’re safe now. Just another moment and you should begin to feel better.”

It was only a few seconds before her body relaxed and she could breathe again, but it felt like eons to them both. “Th… Thor? Jane?” 

“Both well and safe. Thor was able to return Jane to Midgard.”

“Odin?”

A muscle in his jaw tightened. “The king is well enough, yes.”

“Ma… Malekith?”

“Malekith is dead,” said Loki shortly, and left it at that. She was in no condition to risk telling her more. 

Frigga moaned and closed her eyes, and her head moved restlessly on her pillow. When she looked at him again, she blinked and stared in confusion. “Where… where am I?”

“Home,” he reassured her. “And safe. You are in my keeping. Do you think I would let anything hurt you now?”

“Loki… Loki? My son?” Weakly, she tried to grip his hands. “My son?”

The lump in his throat threatened to choke him. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Your son.”

An expression of indescribable relief passed over Frigga’s face. Soothed by his presence, she soon slipped back into sleep. 

When Eir arrived to check on her patient, she found Loki still sitting there, Frigga’s hand clutched in his, and it was only with difficulty that she could shoo him away to examine the queen’s progress.

“She is healing faster than I expected, given the gravity of her injury, particularly after only a few days.” Eir smiled. “It appears that all your spinning has had a decidedly positive effect on the queen’s condition.”

“…Truly?”

“Truly. Look.” She pulled a glowing outline from the monitor so that it hung in the air between them. “The wound in her chest is still severe, and will require some weeks to heal completely. But it is no longer a fatal injury.” She waved away the visual and turned to Loki. “You have done well, my prince. The All-father will surely be pleased with your determination and loyalty. “Fighting when the fight may be hopeless, all for the sake of another, that is a rare kind of valor.”

Loki looked at her blankly for a moment, and then burst into tears. 

Eir made no comment, merely gave him space and time to give vent to his overtaxed emotions. Instead, she busied herself with checking on Frigga’s dressings, and adjusting the flow of medication into her veins.

“Go to bed,” said the chief healer bluntly, when Loki was calm again. “As one of the most powerful magic-users in the palace, I know you took the brunt of the backlash from the Dark Elf’s demise – yes, the king is aware of what Thor accomplished. By the skin of his teeth, no doubt, knowing the prince. But it has been a trying number of days, and I know you have not bothered to sleep.”

He managed a weary smile. “Is that an order?”

“Yes.” Eir gestured to the anteroom, where a bed had been made up for him. “You have never made things easy for yourself, but your heart is good, and you’ve worked yourself nearly to the bone to help your mother. She will recover, and so will you. Now off with you, boy. Sleep.”

“Yes, mistress,” he said meekly, and slunk away.

When Eir was done tending to the queen some little time later, and before she left the royal chambers, she quietly peeked in on the prince. 

He was curled up on top of his bed, his knees drawn to his chest and his mouth hanging slightly open, so deeply consumed with exhaustion that he had not even bothered to undress or turn down the bedclothes before collapsing.

And clasped within his arms, glowing gently against his chest, was the seidr thread-laden spindle.


	6. Chapter 6

Not for the first time since learning of his true heritage, Loki dreamed of Jotunheim, of cold that could not touch him and darkness that was no barrier to his eyes, of vast blue ice sheets stretching from one side of the realm to the other and frost-covered black volcanic mountains thrusting up into the heavens... and of cliffs, and fissures, and falling. 

He woke sharply as the ground gave way beneath his feet, Thor’s impotent scream still echoing in his ears. The dreams always transitioned into falling, and while imprisoned in the gleaming white box of Odin’s dungeons, he had trained himself to wake as soon as the sickening sensation began. If he did not, the uncomfortable dream would become—something else. 

His stomach churning slightly, Loki sat up with care. The spindle was still clenched in his palm, and he had to use his other hand to uncurl his stiff fingers from around the polished shaft. There were deep impressions of his fingers in the golden yarn.

He scrubbed his hands through his tangled hair and thought longingly of a bath, but instead he pushed it out of his eyes and went back into his mother’s room. 

Thor was there. Standing at Frigga’s bedside, looking down at her. 

Loki hesitated on the threshold of the antechamber. There was something about Thor’s posture, the set of his shoulders and the resigned line of his back, that made him uneasy, though what it could be, Loki had no idea. Thor had succeeded. He had killed Malekith, saved Jane Foster – saved all Yggdrasil – and retrieved the Reality Stone. 

It was that last item, Loki realized, that gave him pause, and brought the sickening sensation of falling back into his gut. 

He gulped, a bit too loudly, and then straightened up as Thor looked round and saw him. “Welcome home,” said Loki, forcing something like a neutral tone. 

Thor made no reply, though his eyes briefly softened. “How is she?” he asked instead, turning his gaze back to their mother. “The monitors show me one thing, but she...”

“She woke twice, during your battle. The magical energy expended by the fight cut through all layers of this reality, and possibly some others as well, and roused her from her coma.”

“But not to waken.”

“No, it was only a few moments each time.” Loki stepped forward and came to stand next to Thor, and touched Frigga’s hand gently. His throat tightened at the memory of her joy in seeing him. “Eir says she is mending.”

“Thanks to you.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Thor’s hand came up to rest on Loki’s shoulder. “I would.”

Loki pushed his hand away quickly, so that Thor would not feel him trembling. Needing to do focus elsewhere, he pulled seidr from the air and set to spinning. “I felt everything, you know. When Malekith took the Aether from Jane… and when you destroyed Malekith.”

“How?” asked Thor, aghast.

“Through the Convergence, I suppose. I think Mother felt some of it as well. I tried to keep most of it from her…” He pressed his lips together for a moment, and then forced himself to continue. “You know, I once thought that I would be a wiser king than either you or Father. I was wrong. I could not… what you’ve done this day… this is not for me. The alignment has brought all the realms together. _You_ brought the realms together. You risked your life to save them all.” Loki looked down at the spindle, unable – or perhaps unwilling – to look at his brother. “What has Asgard offered its new king in return?”

Thor sighed. “My life.”

Everything around them came to a halt. All but the spindle, with its burden of magical thread, tossing back and forth between Loki’s increasingly nervous hands. 

“Loki, I cannot be king of Asgard. I will protect my home and all the realms with my last and every breath, but I cannot do so from the throne. You, brother, for all your... grave imbalance...” Someone snorted, and it took Loki a moment to recognize the sound as coming from himself. “You understand rule as I never will. The brutality, the sacrifice... it changes you. And I would rather be a good man than a great king.”

Loki heard Thor’s words, and could not credit them. “Is this my brother I hear?” he asked, trying to jest. “Or the woman he loves?”

“When Father speaks – when you speak – do I not hear Mother’s voice?” Loki looked up sharply. “This is not for Jane, Loki. She does not know what decision I made today.”

“And... Father has consented?”

“He had no choice. Whether he forbade me to see her or decreed that she should rule at my side, it changes nothing.”

The spindle came to a halt at last, but it felt to Loki as though all of the tension stored within the thread had somehow changed places, and entered his body instead. “One son who wanted the throne too much,” he murmured, his voice strained with the effort of not snapping like a brittle fiber, “another who will not take it. So this is Odin’s legacy.”

“You have borne your imprisonment with honor, and proven yourself more than you believed yourself to be. I shall try to live the same. That must be legacy enough for Father.” And then Thor paused expectantly.

With a stab of bitter shame, Loki understood. He was waiting for a denial. He expected Loki to deny Odin again. Loki was tempted to throw the assumption back in his face, out of sheer spite, and embrace the king as his father once more. 

And it burned, how much he wanted to. He wanted his father back. 

“I’ve proven myself, have I? Am I once more a worthy son of Odin?” A tiny smile tugged at his lips, but got no farther. “Perhaps there is hope, then.”

“For what?”

“For Odin to once more prove himself a worthy father of Loki. Though I rather doubt it.”

To his surprise, Thor made no argument. “He gave me neither blessing nor wishes of good fortune, nor any expression of his pride. But he let me go. Perhaps... there is hope for him to prove a worthy father of us both.”

“But you will not be here to see the miracle happen, if it ever does.”

At the thought of Thor leaving for good, really and truly _leaving_ , something in Loki’s chest tore like paper.

“I will return,” Thor promised, mistaking the stricken look on his brother’s face, “when Mother awakens, and when Asgard needs me.”

“And... if I should need you?” 

Thor grasped his shoulders. “Then I will be here. I have been a poor brother in the past. I did not always understand. I think... I understand even less now. But if you need me, I will come.”

“With you gone and Mother on the mend, it’ll be back to the dungeons for me, as soon as you’re gone. You’re the only one he listens to.”

“If Father listened to me, then I wouldn’t have had to commit treason to save our people, would I?” 

“Sif said much the same thing,” Loki remembered, with a bit of a smile.

Thor hesitated. “Tell me truly: do you think I should stay?”

“You’re asking me to tell the truth? You must want me to lie to you.” Loki looked down at his hands, wrapping yarn around the spindle’s shaft. He could feel his mother through the fibers, warm and steady, and wondered if the next words he spoke were truly his own, or if Frigga was speaking through him. “You and Dr. Foster... she’s human. Mortal. You two... you haven’t much time.”

“She’s young. I am not saying goodbye to her yet. Certainly not this day.”

“This day, the next, a hundred years... it’s nothing. A heartbeat.” Loki swallowed hard, and glanced furtively at the sleeping woman on the gilded bed. “You'll never be ready. She’ll be snatched away, someday, when you least expect it. But you’ll still be there. And so will the rest of us. ...So I think you should go.” Then he grinned. “What’s a hundred years or so, to a god?”

Thor pulled him into a tight, fierce hug, and Loki hung on as long as he could.

And then, as before, Thor was gone. 

Loki slowly resumed his seat, and turned the spindle over in his hands. The burden of thread that it carried was heavy and vibrant with energy, and when he brushed his fingertips over it, he felt again the connection between himself and his mother. 

“A strange thing,” he said aloud, his voice rueful and sad in his ears, and for the moment, not much caring that the person who had just entered the room could hear him. 

But whatever else Loki might have said faded away before he was aware of the words. They would have been for his ears and for Frigga’s, not for the man who came and sat on the opposite side of the queen’s bed, and would not meet Loki’s eyes.

It was some time before the king spoke. 

“I have sent soldiers to retrieve the survivors from Malekith’s ships. They will be brought to Asgard.” 

A sour taste came into Loki’s mouth. “For the purposes of a mass execution, I assume?” 

Odin’s eye closed in shame. He did not challenge Loki’s blunt inquiry. What would have been the point? “They will live here, until a suitable place for them to resettle can be found. Svartalfheim is barely inhabitable.”

This time, Loki deemed it wiser to keep his mouth shut, and neither of them mentioned the fact that the reason the Dark Elves’ native realm could no longer support life was due to the actions of Odin’s father Bor. It would have perhaps been hypocritical of Loki to continue castigating the king for crimes he had nearly committed himself. But it was at the forefront of both of their minds.

“Such mercy is what Frigga would wish of me,” said Odin. “Of both of us.” 

The blood drained from Loki’s face. Surely he must be hearing things… 

“You said it best, you know.”

“I? I don’t understand.” 

“That if we can lay claim to even a small part of ourselves as unmonstrous, it is because of Frigga. And I might add, for both of us… in spite of our fathers. Both of my sons are more like me than I ever realized. Though I never would have suspected you as the burgeoning conqueror. But I find I am more grateful to know that you are both so very, very like your mother.”

“It was... it was not my design,” Loki admitted, almost as a whisper. “Everything that happened on Jotunheim, on Earth... I never wanted...”

Odin’s aged face creased in a deep frown. “My son? What—?”

A soft wordless murmur from between them silenced them both for a second, and then Loki seized Frigga’s hand. “Mother, I’m here.”

“Loki… Loki?” Frigga’s eyes fluttered opened, and for the brief instant that it took her vision to focus, his heart was in his mouth. Then she smiled. “My son.”

He swallowed painfully, but his delight was too real to be contained. “Yes, Mother. I’m here.”

She slowly raised her hand to his face, and then began to weep for joy. 

There would be time for confessions later, time to lay all the guilt and anger and shame out in the open and expose it to the light. 

Loki grasped one of her hands, and Odin the other, and for a little while, all the old secrets, all the pain and darkness, was laid aside.


End file.
